“This is gonna get ugly.”
“It should have gotten ugly a long time ago. I kept quiet about the extreme verbal abuse I suffered from that woman for years. She’s never treated me like her daughter, and now that she knows my sisters and I are rebuilding our relationship, she’s gonna do whatever she can to sabotage that.”
“This isn’t a good look for you. I know not seeing your sisters wasn’t in the conditions of your parole, but she could very well press assault charges.”
“She can’t press charges on me without implicating her—”
“She’s not the one on parole. Do you want to go back to jail?”
I sighed and shook my head.
“Good. If she’s granted the restraining order, follow it. If not, you still need to follow her rules. At the end of the day, she is the mother, and those girls are in her care. Adrienne will be eighteen soon. She can do what she wants then, but until both of them are of age, Kennedy is their legal authority. I know that’s not what you want to hear. I know this doesn’t feel fair, but it’s the reality of it.”
I didn’t say anything in response. I knew she was right, but my heart wouldn’t hear it.
“Can I go now?” I asked.
“We have a few more things to discuss, and I need a urine sample.” She reached into the desk drawer and placed a cup in front of me. “Let’s get this over with.”
I sighed heavily as I snatched the cup up and went to the bathroom with her on my heels. Once the sample was collected, we talked for a little while longer before she gave me permission to leave. Begrudgingly, I left the office and took the elevator ride back down to the first floor. I couldn’t even say that I was disappointed with the way this visit went because it went exactly how I expected.
As bad as I hoped Erica’s friend from CPS found something to incriminate Kennedy, I also hoped that she didn’t. I didn’t want to believe that Kennedy would hurt my sisters, but I also couldn’t put anything past her. She had shown her hand way too many times for me to believe that ten years had changed anything.
Her social media presence alone said that. I’d created a fake account to keep tabs on her. Since her page wasn’t private, I could see everything. She told strangers way too much of her business. She had posts showcasing the things her boyfriend brought her, the five-star dinners he took her to, or the lavish vacations she went on. Nowhere in those pictures were my sisters. My guess, while she was out living her best life, they were left to fend for themselves.
The last couple of weeks, she’d made several posts about me, my aunt and uncle, and my sisters.
With Adrienne and Amiyah, she mostly posted about raising unruly teenagers who didn’t listen and thought they were grown. With Aunt Penny and Uncle Clive, she ranted and raved about them being unloyal and backstabbing her. Then there was me. She posted my mugshot several times, calling me a murderer, a whore, and just plain evil. She posted a picture of her bruised face from where I slapped her. While she didn’t say I did it, the caption read,A bitch thought she hadme. Face still pretty.
I shook my head at every post. The woman was forty-four years old and still playing these games. She didn’t take accountability. She didn’t listen to shit. If it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, she got loud and defensive. I remembered the one time I tried to be brave enough to tell her what was happening to me.
I was fifteen at the time. She was in the kitchen, packing her lunch for work. The girls were upstairs sleeping, and Rodney hadn’t gotten there yet. I’d come down to get a drink of water before going to bed. Nervously, I stood in the entryway of the kitchen twiddling my thumbs as I watched her.
“Either come get what youcame to get or take your ass upstairs, Alayah,” shesaid, not bothering to look up at me.
“Ma…canI talk to you?”
“What is it now? Don’task me for any money because I don’t haveany for you.”
“It’s not money.”
She looked upfrom the sandwich she was making. “What do you want? I know you want something.”
“I don’t want anything. I…I need to tell you something.”
She sighed asshe placed her hand on her hip. “What? Out withit.”
I slowly walked over to her with my headdown. “It’s Rodney.”
“What about Rodney?”
“I don’tlike him, Ma. He makes me uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable how, Alayah? The man is always nice to you. Always buying youand your sisters shit. Having nice things makes you uncomfortable?”
“It’s not that. It’s…he looks at melike—”
“Stop, because I know you aren’t implying whatI think you’re implying. Look at you, Alayah. Nowlook at me. Why would he look at you anykind of way when he has me? You’re seeingshit that ain’t there, and I’m about tohelp you see clearly. What you better do is stickto these little nappy-headed boys around here. You wannabe fast, you better be fast with them. All Iknow is you better not bring me any babies.”
